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<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;"><br>
Hello all,<br>
<br>
I would like some advice regarding a possible upgrade of an organizational software application we use at the Graduate Student Organization.<br>
<br>
In fact, while initially what I need is advice and directions, we may soon be interested in contracting a single developer or a (small?) development company to entirely replace our existing system with something nice and FOSSy.<br>

<br>
To describe things briefly, our system:<br>
<br>
- Keeps grad student personal data.<br>
- Records payments and debts.<br>
- Communicates directly or via imported/exported data files with some Technion and non-Technion systems: The listserv, ANAM, the student tuition people etc.<br>
- Records non-financial operations such as collecting a gift, joining/leaving the organization etc.<br>
- Is used simultaneously by more than one person on a network (although it is extremely rare for two people to try to add or modify db records at the same time)<br>
<br>
The number of people handled by the system at any given time can range upto 5,000 (let&#39;s make it 10,000 to be on the safe side), and if we keep info about people active in the past and don&#39;t only maintain a snapshot of the present, then we need to be able to handle, say, 10,000 as a real estimate for the next several years and 30,000 to be on the safe side. There isn&#39;t any heavy calculation going on, it&#39;s all pretty routine and mundane.<br>

<br>
Before talking about our currently operating solution, here are some questions:<br>
<br>
Q1: What software platforms/toolkits/etc. would you recommend for this kind of a system? Be specific, not &quot;make it LAMP-based&quot;.<br>
Q2: Do you know of specific software apps, already written, which cover this functionality and may be easily adapted to our needs (or would not need any adapting)?<br>
Q3: Do you know people/organizations who run such systems with FOSS solutions, and would be willing to share their experiences?<br>
<br>
Our system as you may probably have guessed is based on MS Access, with a Frontend-Backend split to ease multi-user use. While it is working well enough today, it is an endless patch-work, not well documented, without proper specs for anything, and showing signs of aging with every operation becoming slower as features are added and the number of people grows. There are also some foundational architectural assumptions which we want to change (e.g. the present snapshot vs. full history I mentioned above).<br>

<br>
Q4: Not a list-relevant question, but are more recent versions of Access, or Access + a full-blown SQL server, options which allow better scaling? Perhaps with careful coding?<br>
Q5: Does any of you know people we could consult regarding migrating away from MS-Access to a more capable platform which is both FOSS and is easy to extend in the way Access-based apps are?<br>
Q6: Is it or is it not worth thinking in the direction of web-based frontends to databases, rather than plain vanilla apps?<br>
<br>
<br>
Any other thoughts/comments are welcome.<br>
<br>
Eyal<br>
<br>
PS - We&#39;re an organization of mostly non-Technically-oriented people, bear that in mind.<br>
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</blockquote></div><br>
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